Jazz Articles

Our daily articles are carefully curated by the All About Jazz staff. You can find more articles by searching our website, see what's trending on our popular articles page or read articles ahead of their published dates on our Coming Soon page. Read our daily album reviews.

Album Review

Marie-Pierre Langlamet: Schubert

Read "Schubert" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 31, 2015

Marie-Pierre Langlamet is the principal harpist for the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. She recently joined forces with Canadian violinist Lara St. John for a novel take on Bach on Bach Sonatas (Ancalagon, 2012). On Schubert Langlamet takes the helm of a project, released on Lara St. John's label Ancalagon Records, focusing on the music of Franz Schubert where, in place of the composer's piano, she uses her harp as the harmony instrument, not unlike the vibraphone replacing the piano in jazz ...

Album Review

Matt Mitchell: Vista Accumulation

Read "Vista Accumulation" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
October 31, 2015

Growing up in a neighborhood, how do you get from, “Hey you kids, get off of my lawn!" to “Congratulations, Mr. Mitchell, on your son winning the Doris Duke Impact award and being named a Pew Fellow"? We are talking about the musical, not the suburban neighborhood here and in seemingly a blink of an eye, pianist Matt Mitchell is ubiquitous. His keyboard touch can be heard in the ensemble Snakeoil led by Tim Berne, Rudresh Mahanthappa's Birdcalls, ...

Jazz Near Me

The Hunterdon Hills Are Alive With Jazz

by Gloria Krolak
October 31, 2015

The town of Clinton in the green, rolling hills of Hunterdon County, NJ, celebrated her 150th birthday last May and, for an old lady, she looked downright spry. Town planners observed the sesquicentennial with a jazz quartet they know well. Guitarist Arturo--he goes by his first name--and some iteration of his group play the outdoor gig on Main Street every other Friday evening in the summertime. On this Sunday afternoon, the cordoned-off streets gave way to a canopy underneath which ...

Album Review

The Necks: Vertigo

Read "Vertigo" reviewed by Mark Sullivan

by Mark Sullivan
October 30, 2015

The Necks don't swing. Since they are sometimes described as an “experimental jazz trio," it seems best to just put that on the table at the outset. I hesitate to call their music “free improvisation," as well, because of the abrasive, dissonant qualities so often found in that music--which doesn't describe The Necks at all. What this Australian group does is collectively create soundscapes that change and grow, but very slowly and gently. It's no accident that ambient pioneer Brian ...

Album Review

Made To Break: Before The Code

Read "Before The Code" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
October 30, 2015

No band has ever attempted to bridge the sounds of free improvisation, funk, and electronics before Ken Vandermark formed the quartet Made To Break. The groups fourth release Before The Code pushes the musical envelope a bit more into the stratosphere, maybe even into the musical mesosphere. The saxophonist and composer whose credits include the seminal bands Vandermark 5, Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet, Resonance Ensemble, and Audio One, to name just four of his multiplicity of current and ...

Live Review

Lee Ritenour at Scullers

by Dave Dorkin
October 30, 2015

Lee Ritenour Scullers Boston, MA October 4, 2015 Guitarist Lee Ritenour has made a career as such a versatile session man (with session work ranging from Joe Henderson to Pink Floyd) and has done so many smooth jazz and pop dates that hardcore jazz fans can be forgiven for not having seen him burn live in the company of a real band on standards and his own originals. Ritenour assembled a vibrant ...

Album Review

Matt Mitchell: Vista Accumulation

Read "Vista Accumulation" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian

by Hrayr Attarian
October 30, 2015

Composer and pianist Matt Mitchell creates haunting and vibrant soundscapes on his second release for Pi Records, Vista Accumulation. The eight, multilayered, originals that comprise the double disc set are organically fluid in structure with a tense ambience and a barely contained fervor within. Saxophonist and clarinetist Chris Speed opens the stimulating “The Damaged Center" with his fiery tenor. The rest of the ensemble percolates and gallops around him. Initially somewhat harmonious the group dynamics grows delightfully more ...

Album Review

Marilyn Crispell / Gerry Hemingway: Table Of Changes

Read "Table Of Changes" reviewed by John Sharpe

by John Sharpe
October 30, 2015

Although Table of Changes is only the third release from the pairing of pianist Marilyn Crispell and percussionist Gerry Hemingway, it comes relatively hot on the heels of Affinities (Intakt, 2011) which broke a long silence since Duo (Knitting Factory, 1989). The paucity of these occurrences belies an extensive shared tenure, both as part of reedman Anthony Braxton's classic quartet from 1984 through until 1992, and in regular hook ups thereafter. In tandem they plumb the extremes of intent exhibited ...

Album Review

Jag vet en dejlig rosa (A Beautiful Rose): Come Rain or Come Shine

Read "Come Rain or Come Shine" reviewed by C. Michael Bailey

by C. Michael Bailey
October 30, 2015

Stockholm Voices is a Swedish jazz vocal quartet who join the company of Manhattan Transfer, New York Voices and the newly minted London, Meader, Pramuk and Ross. But, Stockholm Voices brings something very different to the tables in the way of a retrospective style. Rather than the bebop lightening bolts thrown off by the greater field of jazz quartet vocals, the Stockholm Voices harken back to a time when the Mills Brothers and the Andrews Sister were developing their swing ...

Live Review

Barranquijazz 2015: Trombone Heaven in the Tropics

by Mark Holston
October 30, 2015

It's impossible to know beforehand what individual performance at a multi-day jazz festival will be remembered as a certifiable highlight. Sometimes the key factor that makes such a magic moment possible is unpredictable and comes out of the blue. At Colombia's recent annual Barranquijazz Festival, the curiosity of a festival staff member led to a particularly memorable outing by Brazilian trombonist Raul de Souza and his quintet when they tackled “Nanã" by the late composer Moacir Santos. Although the funky ...